Morning sickness blues, building a nest

Ball’s girlfriend Jay has morning sickness, and has entered her third day in a row of being unable to keep food down.

I have urged her to see a doctor but she wants to wait until pay day on Tuesday. Her health insurance has run out, so she will have to pay the medical fees herself.

‘It can’t come to more than a few hundred baht, surely,’ I said, urging her to go straight away.

‘But I have no money,’ she said.

On pay day, Jay gives a few thousand baht from her meagre pay to Ball’s mother, to help pay her way. Towards the end of the month, she must borrow from Mum, as her money has usually run out.

Even when she needs it, she is reluctant to borrow, as she worries Mum will resent it. Ball is just as unwilling to borrow from his mother, as he doesn’t want to impose.

In such circumstances, I feel obliged to hep occasionally, though I would rather the couple made their own arrangements, as I am sure the money is there, or at least some of it, were they to ask.

On the internet, I am depressed to read that there are no simple cures for morning sickness, although plenty of self-help remedies are on offer. However, even they require money.

Another reason Ball wants to delay taking Jay to the doctor until next week is that Jay wants to arrange pre-natal care with the doctor at the same time. ‘We may as well do both at the same time, as it all costs money,’ he says.

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In happier news, I am pleased to report that Ball’s bedroom is now ready to welcome a child into the world.

For the last couple of months his mother and I have been doing it up. He now has new boarding on the walls, and a tiled ceiling. We have also lined the floor, bought a wardrobe, a mattress, and bedding.

Ball’s mother does most of the work, though to repair the walls and ceiling, we hired a builder. In her youth, Mum was a painter, so she tackled the walls and door, and also lined the floor.

I gave moral encouragement.

Actually, I did more than that, but want to keep the language vague, as Thai eyes are watching.

Pyramids of false hope

Ball and his girlfriend Jay are looking for extra work to supplement their income before the baby arrives.

They spent two days over the weekend attending a seminar in Bangkok about a job which they were told involved easy work on the computer at home.

They paid a training fee of B150 each. Jay borrowed B500 from me to cover the fees and any other expenses. Mum gave them B200 a day to cover transport and food on top of that.

They spent the day there on Sunday, and another few hours at an ‘evening session’ the next night.

Both took the day off work so they could attend the second day of the two-day seminar.

When the seminar ended, they expected they would be able to start work for the company straight away.

Wrong.

Ball and Jay came home bearing bad news: organisers told them they would have to invest more than B30,000 buying the company’s products before they could join.

Why did they not say this at the outset, before training began?

Ball and Jay had fallen for a pyramid scheme, they now realise.  Team leaders bring hundreds of potential recruits together for a seminar in which successful members of the 'multi-level marketing network' (direct sales to everyone else) get up and talk about how their lives have changed - for the better, of course.

They talk about the smart cars they have bought, the holidays they have taken overseas, and the huge incomes which members of the network stand to earn once they sign up. Pictures of expensive cars, exotic holiday locales, and fat cheques adorn the walls.

Relatively little time is spent extolling the virtues of the products, which can comprise unusual health cures or miracle remedies for ageing, diabetes and so on.

Who cares about what you sell? It's all about growing your network so people under you do all the work.

Mum was disgusted when she heard the news.

‘I fell for one of those schemes once. I lost B40,000 buying their products which I could not sell. Your success depends not just on how well you sell, but the quality of the people you recruit to work under you,' she said.

'At the sales presentations, men in sharp suits get up and tell you how rich they are.’

Needless to say, Mum is not interested in paying out on their behalf to buy the company's products.

Ball is still a believer, but when he heard how much they wanted him to pay, he gave up. They learnt the bad news shortly after midnight. Neither had eaten for hours, as the organisers permitted no breaks.

A long journey home awaited Ball and Jay, who now wonder why they bothered.

'Whether I was cheated or not is not the point...I can't find B30,000, so I have to forget about that idea,' he said.

Perhaps most iniquitous is that these slick sales people urge potential recruits not to tell their families that they are involved in the scheme.

'Multi-level marketing has a bad name...they won't understand,' they pur, while at the same time urging potential recruits not to turn to pawnshops or illegal lenders to pay for their initial B30,000 outlay.

What I don’t understand is how Ball and Jay could spend so long there before they realised what these desperate people were peddling.

I spent a day with a pyramid sales company in Bangkok once. The company sold ginseng juice. 
Those people were just as ruthless. That story is here.

PS: I could name the other direct sales company here, but I can do without the grief.

The similarities between the sales presentation which Ball and Jay attended, and the one I visited several years ago in the story above, are uncanny. It's almost as if they are run by the same crowd.

Loy Krathong, stripped down

Maiyuu and I floated a romantic krathong (banana leaf boat) to mark Loy Krathong Day, but we did it a little differently from the rest.

As we get older, or spend longer together (I am not sure which), we have started marking festivals such as Loy Krathong in the most minimalist, pain-free style we can muster.

Last year, we shunned the crowds on the Chao Phraya River banks, where many Thais go to float a krathong, for the simplicity of home.

Maiyuu bought two krathongs, and we floated them in the bathtub instead.

Isn't that too basic to be called a Loy Krathong celebration, I hear you ask?

A little more effort is involved, dear reader. We light candles and incense sticks on the top, hold them to our heads and make a small prayer.

Only then do set them afloat.

Where the prayer thing is concerned, I follow Maiyuu’s lead, as I don’t want to look gauche.

Last night Maiyuu bought two krathongs, but instead of running the bath, as we did last year, we opted for an even simpler solution: we filled a black washing tub instead, stuck it in the bath, and floated our krathongs in the tub.

‘I can’t be bothered running the bath,’ said Maiyuu.

I agreed, as it was already after midnight by the time we decided to observe the ceremony.

As he charged the tub with water, I watched a live broadcast on TV of loy krathong festivities elsewhere in the country.

The Chiang Mai celebrations - or should I say, the young men and women parading about town in traditional Lanna dress – looked great.

I was taking an eyefull of handsome students from a Chiang Mai university, holding a banner aloft as they wandered about bare-chested, when Maiyuu told me it was time we did our thing.

‘Okay,’ said Maiyuu, summoning me into the bathroom.

He lit the candles on my float, and asked me to hold it while he did his business.

He lit his own, and knelt on the floor.

Maiyuu held the float to his head, said a silent prayer, and set the thing afloat in the tub.

I followed his example.

I don’t know what he said in his little prayer, but mine was in the nature of a New Year wish:

‘Stop causing your boyfriend grief, and try to make his life happy in the year ahead.’

 Here's last year's Loy Krathong post.

Soggy smalls drama

where the undies hang

A pair of underwear is causing a commotion at Ball’s place.

Ball’s cousin Nam, who lives with Ball’s family, hung out the washing the other day from a rickety wooden veranda on the top level of their two-storey place.

Among the washing was a pair of her knickers.

The people who live opposite took offence. Whenever they looked up, they caught an eyeful of Nam’s soggy smalls.

Underwear is regarded as a dirty, lower-body thing. Yet here it was, dangling above their heads, regarded as the loftiest part of the body.

Ball’s family home is in a slum, where nothing goes unnoticed.

For many Thais, the underwear omission may have passed unremarked.

But for the ignorant types who live opposite – suspicious souls who believe the sight of Nam's smalls could be a bad omen – it was too big an opportunity to pass up.

Why not pick a fight with the neighbours?

Ball says the people opposite are strict about their religious beliefs.

I believe they are mere trouble-makers, and can't stand the sight of them.

Just as they had intended, their silly complaint about Nam’s knickers had everyone in a twist.

Ball's family does not want trouble with the neighbours. Their complaint set off a small domestic crisis.

Ball’s mother reprimanded Nam.

‘I have told you to keep them indoors, but you won’t listen,’ she said.

Ball’s elder sister Kae also weighed in.

Nam, 14, a cheerful girl who does not let much worry her, took the criticism in her stride.

'I forgot,' she said.

Nothing was said to the neighbours, but the underwear was quickly removed from the overhead line.

The man opposite, a thick-set type aged in his 30s, opens his place as a type of makeshift karaoke bar when he is not inspecting his neighbour's washing.

He sells booze, and trades until late. Slum folk – mainly wastrels from the place next to his, who do not work, and trade in drugs - gather there nightly, get drunk, and make noise.

Noise from the karaoke place, and the narrow slum alleyway outside, enters Ball's place freely.

However, the wooden doors of his family home are mercifully thick. If the noise gets too bad, we can close the doors to block it out.

By the next day when I visited, the underwear drama was still going.

‘They just go on and on about it, and won’t let it pass,’ Ball told me.

Nam was spread out on the floor doing her homework.

When she is not in class, she spends most of her time chatting on the phone or playing Facebook, where she has almost 3,000 fans.

Next time, she’ll know better.

One day, however, I might have to deal to the neighbours.

Since they made their complaint, Ball and I have stopped buying our liquor supplies from them.

We used to buy half-bottles of whisky from them, but now take our custom elsewhere.

Once, Ball could just extend his arm across the alleyway when he wanted a bottle. Now, we have to walk out to the main road to buy the brown stuff.

Still, I don’t mind. His neighbours don’t deserve us.

Police visit the karaoke man often, as he has a history of trouble with the men in khaki.

‘I would like to complain about the noise, as they have no licence to open that place or sell booze. We are in a residential area,’ I told Ball.

Residential area? Actually, we are packed in like sardines.

I doubt the folk who live there are used to asserting their rights. They just put up with things.

‘Just let them be...you get used to noise when you live in a slum,’ Ball said.

Law 'n' order special

The company which employs security guards at my condo has paid out on Maiyu’s stolen bike, after admitting its staff were negligent.

A gang of three entered the precinct of our condo a month ago and stole Maiyuu’s bike.

The theft took place right under the noses of two security guards, who waved the thieves through.

The company has paid us B8000, which is B2000 short of the price I paid for it 18 months ago.

A portion of that money will be drawn from the pay of the two lax security guards, who were too busy chatting to notice that one of the thieves was cycling past on Maiyuu’s bike.

Security cameras caught the guards chatting to each other, oblivious to what was going on. They also captured clear images of the thieves, though we have yet to hear anything from police about whether they have caught them.

The head of the security company gave Maiyuu a wounded look when Maiyuu went to pick up the bicycle payment, as if he expected he would pay some of it back in sympathy.

Forget about it, mate. Next time, employ guards who know how to do their jobs.
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Speaking of law and order, the theft case involving Ball’s younger brother Beer has finally wrapped up in court.

Several months ago, Mum entered a business venture with Kung, a forlorn, oily little man who lives in her slum neighbourhood.

Police had caught him once before, stealing petrol from his boss and selling it cheaply to petrol stations. But this did not deter Kung from approaching Mum with a proposal that she help him do it again.

Mum bought a pick-up truck, and Kung hired it from her to carry out his furtive night-time business venture. He hired Mr B as his helper. They travelled far and wide picking up petrol from dubious sources, and selling it to petrol stations which did not mind receiving stolen property.

Barely a month after they had started, police stopped the pair and asked to search the truck. They impounded the vehicle, and arrested Kung and Mr B.

The court convicted Mr B, and sentenced him to jail for 18 months, suspended owing to his age - just 17 - and the fact that this is his first offence.

The court fined Kung B5,000, which is a light penalty, given his track record. The truck is still with the police.

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Ton, the local wastrel who likes to send me threats by SMS, hasn’t forgotten me.

When he is feeling in need of attention, he will still whip off an SMS, warning me to look out for strange men in the night who want to bump me on the head.

He has also turned up at this condo, looking for his former girlfriend, who, since leaving Ton, now sees farang C, a friend of mine.

My connection to this saga is tenuous: I know farang C and Ton's former girlfriend, and Ton knows me. He calls or sends me unpleasant SMS messages when no one else will listen.

I no longer worry about Ton’s threats. A day after threatening to do me harm, he will call me with a request that I pass on this or that message to his former girlfriend via farang C.

He talks to me normally, as if nothing has happened.

Ton has a screw lose. We can but humour these people, as they humour us.